ANDRADE, Ricardo Pereira de.
Abstract:
STDs and AIDS are health problems that has grown dramatically in recent decades, requiring
health agencies to adopt measures to combat, through awareness campaigns and condom
distribution, in order to seek to minimize this advancement that has affected thousands of
young people and adolescents worldwide. Studies show that young people and teenagers are
starting too early sexual practice, which makes them more vulnerable to contamination of
STD / AIDS. Given these factors, the present study aims at evaluating the knowledge of
students from private schools about STD's and AIDS. This is a descriptive study, in which we
used a semi-structured questionnaire which sought to verify the knowledge of adolescents in
relation to STDs and AIDS and analyze the means by which students acquire information
about these health problems. Participants were 36 students at a private school in the city of
Cajazeiras - PB, 13 males and 23 females, with ages ranging between 15 and 19 years, these
students of the 3rd year. Data collection took place with students from 3rd of a private school
education. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics made with the aid of the statistical
package SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) in its version 15.0. The results
show that young people are knowledgeable of the health problems related to STDs and AIDS.
It was found that the wheels of conversations between friends and the media are the main
vehicles of information on these health problems. Realized also that intercourse occurring
increasingly early and many of these young people do not use condoms. Thus, we found that
adolescents have knowledge and information about concepts related to STD / AIDS, but there
was a deficiency in the practical behavior of protection from the exercise of sexuality, thereby
generating a risk behavior. This jeopardizes the decision-making behaviors of protection.
Emphasizing the need for the development of an ongoing program within schools and in
partnership with health institutions, to promote the development of interactive practices that
enables the adolescent to applicability of their knowledge in their everyday relationships.
